Rain / Snow detection for IR

[gigabyte-1000]

Is it possible to detect rain / snow during night (as the cameras are blind anyways), and switch off object detections until the storm passes? I thought maybe for rain audio detection could be used and toggled through HA but still thinking about options.

[inkeep-ai-assistant[bot]]

Frigate doesn't have built-in rain or snow detection capability, but you can work around this using Home Assistant automations to toggle object detection on and off(1)(2)(3).

For your audio detection approach, you can enable audio events and monitor volume levels through MQTT(1). You would configure audio detection globally or per-camera like this:

audio:
  enabled: True
  min_volume: 500
  listen:
    - bark
    - fire_alarm
    - scream
    - speech
    - yell

(1)

The min_volume setting determines the threshold for audio detection, with values around 200 being high sensitivity, 500 medium sensitivity, and 1000 low sensitivity(1)(2).

From Home Assistant, you can monitor the audio volume sensor and create an automation that disables object detection when sustained high audio levels (potentially rain) are detected(4). The Frigate integration exposes switch entities for each camera's detect functionality(3)(5).

To toggle detection, you can use the switch.CAMERANAME_detect entity in Home Assistant(3). When you set detect: enabled: false in the config or toggle it via Home Assistant, object detection stops for that camera(2)(6).

One limitation: if you disable audio in the config with audio: enabled: false, the audio detection toggle disappears from the UI entirely(3). You'll need to keep audio enabled in the config and control it through automations(3)(7).

📚 Sources:

1. Audio Detectors
2. Full Reference Config
3. Implement "audio detect" option
4. [Detector Support]: Audio Detector
5. ARMED and UNARMED configurations for cameras
6. Getting Started
7. Audio detection: Enable option but disable as default?

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